Round #2

The control arms were a pretty easy job in the rear, just like
they were in the front. While the tires and springs were off, I slipped
the floor jack under the differential housing and brought the axle up a bit so
as to relieve any binding on the factory control arms. We installed the
new longer sway bar links but did not tighten anything up at this time.
After loosening (but not removing) all of the bolts that held both the upper and
lower control arms in place, we pulled one lower at a time and replaced it with
the new RE fixed lower arm. Doing it this way kept the axle from getting
out of alignment and made it very easy to line the bolt holes back up.
Since the factory and RE lower arms are the same length, this was pretty much a
no brainer operation. The cartridge joint end was installed at the axle with
the grease zirk up.

With the lower arms in place, we focused our attention on the
upper arms. I got the RE adjustable upper arms so I could dial in the
pinion angle for my CV drive shaft that would be installed later on that
day. Neither Alan nor I had a clue as to the length that the arms should
be. So, after removing one of the stock arms, we sat them down side by
side and broke out the measuring stick. We decided to add .5" to the
factory length and call it good. So that we got as close as possible
between the two arms, I counted the turns on the first arm that got me to the
extra .5" mark, and then ran the other arm out the same number of
turns. The upper arms have the cartridge joint installed at the frame
bracket (NOTE: I later changed the position of the arms and installed the
bushing end at the frame bracket).

On the following day, once everything was together properly, I
went through and checked the torque specs on all of the arms and made sure the
jam nuts were all tight. As it turned out, our guess on the length of the
upper rear arms were pretty close. We had just minor vibrations and I'll
be adjusting that out tomorrow.